2nd person singular pronoun in Psalms in Garifuna

In Garifuna the second person singular pronoun (“you” in English) has two forms. One is used in women’s speech and one in men’s speech. In the Garifuna Bible the form used in men’s speech is typically used, except when it’s clear that a woman is quoted or in Psalms where the women on the translation team insisted that the form used in women’s speech (buguya) would be used throughout the whole book.

Ronald Ross (in Omanson 2001, p. 375f.) tells the story: “Throughout most of the translation, [the distinctions between the different forms of the pronouns] presented no problem. Whenever the speaker in the text was perceived as a man, the male speech forms were used; and when a woman was speaking, the female speech forms were used. True, the women members of the translation team did object on occasion to the use of the male forms when the author (and narrator) of a book was unknown and the men translators had used the male speech forms as the default. Serious discord arose, however, during the translation of the Psalms because of their highly devotional nature and because throughout the book the psalmist is addressing God. The male translators had, predictably, used the male form to address God, and the male form to refer to the psalmist, even though women speakers of Garifuna never use those forms to address anyone. The women contended that they could not as women read the Psalms meaningfully if God and the psalmist were always addressed as if the readers were men. The men, of course, turned the argument around, claiming that neither could they read the Psalms comfortably if the reader was assumed to be a woman.

“Initially there seemed to be no way out of this impasse. However a solution was found in the ongoing evolution of the language. There is a strong propensity for male speech and female speech to merge in favor of the latter, so the few remaining male forms are gradually dying out. Moreover, male children learn female speech from their mothers and only shift to the male speech forms when they reach adolescence to avoid sounding effeminate. However they use the female form buguya when addressing their parents throughout life. So the women wielded two arguments: First, the general development of the language favored the increasing use of the female forms. Secondly, the female forms are less strange to the men than the male forms are to the women, because the men habitually use them during early childhood and continue to use them to address their parents even in adulthood. Therefore, the female pronominal forms prevailed and were adopted throughout the book of Psalms, though the male forms remained the default forms in the rest of the translation.”

See also female first person singular pronoun in Psalms and addressing God.

Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth . . .

For the phrase “Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you endure; they will all wear out like a garment.You change them like clothing, and they pass away; but you are the same, and your years have no end.” see Hebrews 1:10, Hebrews 1:11, and Hebrews 1:12.

Note that this quote in the New Testament is not taken from the Hebrew Bible but from the Greek Septuagint (LXX) which translates into English as “At the beginning it was you, O Lord, who founded the earth, and the heavens are works of your hands. They will perish, but you will endure, and they will all become old like a garment. Like clothing you will change them, and they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will not fail.” (Translation by NETS — for the Greek version see the title’s tooltip)

complete verse (Psalm 102:26)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Psalm 102:26:

  • Chichewa Contempary Chichewa translation, 2002/2016:
    “These will end, but you will be there;
    they will end like a garment.
    You will change them like a garment
    and they will be thrown away.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
  • Newari:
    “They will all disappear,
    but You will live forever,
    They will all wear out like clothes,
    You will change them like clothes
    and they will disappear.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon:
    “These will-be-no-more, but you (sing.) still will-continue.
    They will- all -wear-out/rotten like a garments.
    And like clothes/garments you (sing.) will-change them and they will-be-no-more.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Laarim:
    “They will disappear, but you will remain forever,
    they will be finished just like clothes.
    You will change them like clothes,
    so that they will disappear forever.” (Source: Laarim Back Translation)
  • Nyakyusa-Ngonde (back-translation into Swahili):
    “Hivyo vitakuja kwisha, lakini wewe uko siku zote,
    vyote vitakuja kuchakaa kama vile nguo.
    Utakuja kuvibadirisha kama vile nguo,
    navyo vitakuja kwisha.” (Source: Nyakyusa Back Translation)
  • English:
    “The earth and the heavens/sky will disappear, but you will remain.
    They will wear out like clothes wear out.
    You will get rid of them like people get rid of old clothes,
    and they will no longer exist,” (Source: Translation for Translators)

addressing God

Translators of different languages have found different ways with what kind of formality God is addressed.

Like many languages (but unlike Greek or Hebrew or modern English), Tuvan uses a formal vs. informal 2nd person pronoun (a familiar vs. a respectful “you”). Unlike other languages that have this feature, however, the translators of the Tuvan Bible have attempted to be very consistent in using the different forms of address in every case a 2nd person pronoun has to be used in the translation of the biblical text.

As Voinov shows in Pronominal Theology in Translating the Gospels (in: The Bible Translator 2002, p. 210ff. ), the choice to use either of the pronouns many times involved theological judgment. While the formal pronoun can signal personal distance or a social/power distance between the speaker and addressee, the informal pronoun can indicate familiarity or social/power equality between speaker and addressee.

In these verses, in which humans address God, the informal, familiar pronoun is used that communicates closeness.

Voinov notes that “in the Tuvan Bible, God is only addressed with the informal pronoun. No exceptions. An interesting thing about this is that I’ve heard new Tuvan believers praying with the formal form to God until they are corrected by other Christians who tell them that God is close to us so we should address him with the informal pronoun. As a result, the informal pronoun is the only one that is used in praying to God among the Tuvan church.”

In Gbaya, “a superior, whether father, uncle, or older brother, mother, aunt, or older sister, president, governor, or chief, is never addressed in the singular unless the speaker intends a deliberate insult. When addressing the superior face to face, the second person plural pronoun ɛ́nɛ́ or ‘you (pl.)’ is used, similar to the French usage of vous.

Accordingly, the translators of the current version of the Gbaya Bible chose to use the plural ɛ́nɛ́ to address God. There are a few exceptions. In Psalms 86:8, 97:9, and 138:1, God is addressed alongside other “gods,” and here the third person pronoun o is used to avoid confusion about who is being addressed. In several New Testament passages (Matthew 21:23, 26:68, 27:40, Mark 11:28, Luke 20:2, 23:37, as well as in Jesus’ interaction with Pilate and Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well) the less courteous form for Jesus is used to indicate ignorance of his position or mocking.” (Source Philip Noss)

In the most recent Manchu translation of 1835 (a revision of an earlier edition from 1822), God is never addressed with a pronoun but with “father” (ama /ᠠᠮᠠ) instead. Chengcheng Liu (in this post on the Cambridge Centre for Chinese Theology blog ) explains: “In Manchu tradition, as in Chinese etiquette, second-person pronouns could be considered disrespectful when speaking to superiors or spiritual beings. Manchu Shamanist prayers avoided si [‘you’] and sini [‘your’] for this very reason. To use them for God would be, in Lipovzoff’s [one of the two translators] words, ‘the most uncouth and indecent way to speak to the Almighty — as if He were a servant or slave.’ There was also a grammatical problem. In Manchu, si and sini could refer to both singular and plural subjects. For a faith that insisted on the singularity of God, this was potentially confusing. By contrast, repeating ama removed any ambiguity.”

In Dutch, Afrikaans, Gronings, and Western Frisian translations, God is always addressed with the formal pronoun.

See also formal pronoun: disciples addressing Jesus, female second person singular pronoun in Psalms.

Honorary "rare" construct denoting God ("change")

Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.

Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between.

One way Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the usage of an honorific construction where the morpheme rare (られ) is affixed on the verb as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. This is particularly done with verbs that have God as the agent to show a deep sense of reverence. Here, torikae-rare-ru (取り替えられる) or “change” is used.

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

Translation commentary on Psalm 102:23 - 102:27

Once more the psalmist describes his own situation (see verses 3-11); the natural implication of verse 23 is that he is still young but does not expect to live to a ripe old age. Line a is literally “He has brought down my strength in the way”; “way” here is taken to mean “while I am still young” (Revised Standard Version in mid-course). One form of the Hebrew text has “his strength” (so the Septuagint); Good News Translation, Revised Standard Version, and the majority of modern texts read the form of the text which has “my strength.” In languages where broken my strength or “made me weak” will refer only to sexual vitality, it may be necessary to say, for example, “has brought me close to death.” In some languages such a notion may be expressed better in figurative language.

In verse 24 the psalmist quotes himself, his prayer that God not let him die but allow him to live a normal life span. Good News Translation, as usual, does not represent this form but has the prayer, with the second person address to God. “Before I grow old” translates in the midst of my days.

Most translations limit the prayer to verse 24; some take it to the end of the psalm (see New International Version, New Jerusalem Bible).

The last line in verse 24 (see Revised Standard Version) is taken by Good News Translation to go with what follows, not with what precedes. It seems difficult to take it to mean, as Revised Standard Version and others render it, that the psalmist is saying, in effect, that it is unfair for God, whose existence has no end, to cut him off in mid-life. So Good News Translation, Biblia Dios Habla Hoy, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, and Traduction œcuménique de la Bible connect it with what follows. Briggs takes the whole strophe (verses 24c-27) to be a fragment of a lost psalm, incorporated into this psalm.

In the last part of the psalm (as understood by Good News Translation), the psalmist, in a hymn to Yahweh, praises his eternal being, which is without beginning or end; this is the basis for the security of those who trust in him (verse 28). In contrast with mortal humankind and transient creation, Yahweh endures forever (see 90.2 for the same affirmation).

The psalmist begins (verse 24c) “for all generations (are) your years,” meaning “your years have no end” (Biblia Dios Habla Hoy) or “you live forever” (Good News Translation). This is balanced in the last line of the strophe (verse 27b) by “your years do not end.”

The LORD created the universe (the earth … the heavens); for lay the foundation of the earth in verse 25a, see 89.11; and for verse 25b, see 8.3. Unlike Yahweh, the earth and the heavens are temporary and will vanish (verse 26). The psalmist compares them to clothes which get worn out and so are discarded (see Isa 51.6). In verse 26c Thou changest them (New Jerusalem Bible “You change them”) may appear to mean that Yahweh would replace the old ones with new ones (so Briggs). But it seems better to understand the text as Good News Translation and New English Bible have done. The analogy of the earth and the heavens wearing out like clothes may not be clear. Therefore it may be necessary to recast this expression to say, for example, “they will become old and useless like old clothes” or “they will wear out and be discarded like old clothes.”

Verse 27a in Hebrew is simply “you are he,” a way of speaking of Yahweh’s uniqueness as one who does not change or grow old; verse 27b matches verse 24c.

Verses 25-27 are quoted in Hebrews 1.10-12 substantially as they appear in the Septuagint; in verse 26a the Septuagint has “you will change them,” while Hebrews 1.12 has “you will fold them (or, roll them up).”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on the Book of Psalms. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1991. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .